The intelligent enterprise: Creating a culture of speedy and efficient decision-making

Executive Summary

In virtually every industry, success hinges not only on traditional competitive advantages such as a dominant market position, geographical penetration, or even proprietary technology. It also depends on the ability to improve business operations by making rapid, high-quality decisions based on the most timely, relevant and accurate information. An Economist Intelligence Unit global survey of more than 200 senior executives across a wide range of industries conducted in July and August 2009 found that accurate and timely decision-making ranked on a par with superior executive leadership and innovation as vital ways of creating competitive advantage. Yet this endeavour is more easily grasped in theory than in practice. Only 3% of respondents describe their companies as “experts” in using business data to drive better decisions, and only 27% agree that their company makes better, faster business decisions than their main competitors.

Business performance is increasingly dependent on a firm’s agility and its ability to generate insights regarding the business environment and the consequences of alternative actions. Companies that do this are more adaptable to market changes and thus have a better chance of gaining market share from their competitors.

The Economist Intelligence Unit survey polled business decision-makers from North America, Western Europe and Asia-Pacific across a wide range of industries and company sizes. Among the key findings:

Decision-making is accelerating, and becoming centralised in the C-suite, rather than being pushed out to regions or business units.

Despite the wide recognition that accurate and timely decision-making is crucial, most firms’ ability to make good decisions needs improvement.

Customer service is a significant trouble spot. Information from customer service and support is ranked among the most critical to a company’s business strategy, yet it ranks poorly as a source of good business insight.

Although data-driven decision-making is espoused by the C-suite, formal governance policies or procedures to ensure the consistency, integrity and accuracy of the data are rare. Even fewer companies dedicate resources to information governance, which is key to ensuring that information is properly analysed and transformed into actionable intelligence.